Let’s talk about my reactions. My first thoughts were about how on earth you teach the sort of leadership that is required to stand up to your peers and call them out on their sexist and violent attitudes. I started by breaking it down in my mind. There must first be a foundation of true understanding and belief in right and wrong. There must exist in the individual a respect and a love for all people, regardless of skin color, income, gender, or any other factor. The individual must be secure and confident in their own belief systems and in their masculinity; they must be capable of using their voice even when they are not using it to say popular things. And they must have a faith in their statements that is unshakable by peer pressure.
So, on to my task: teaching all of this to my four boys. Right off the bat I feel a sense of being an underdog. I feel a little bit like I have shown up to a knife fight without a knife. This is due to the fact that, as a woman, I do not have a lot of credibility when it comes to teaching a boy how to be a strong and confident man. I have never been a man. I will never be a man. I am a woman and have a woman’s perspective on everything.
I have made choices that have led me to this underdog status. I divorced the boys’ father and then I did not remarry. I have not provided an in-house example of a good man. There is no male figure at the head of our dinner table. The choices that I have made regarding my relationship status have an impact on the raising of my children. I understand this. I understand that every choice I make will have some sort of impact on the boys. I understand that by modeling that it is not necessary to be married or in a romantic relationship to have a happy and fulfilled life, I am also leaving the boys without a convenient male role model. Obviously this is a trade-off that I am comfortable with and I am willing to put in some extra work to make up for it.
I believe that there is already an understanding of right and wrong in my boys. There is also a basic love for all, though I can already see where life experiences with a few individuals are coloring the boys’ attitudes towards entire groups of people. These are things that I can continue to reinforce and teach them without too much stress.
It is the self-confidence and the ability to use one’s voice that has me worried. One of the boys is full of self-confidence and will over-use his voice right up until he thinks he may upset someone or lose a friend.One of the boys cannot ever find a voice in an intense situation. One of the boys wrestles with the idea of being a “bad boy” because that designation seems to achieve greater popularity and is consequently more vocal in poor choices than in the ones he knows to be right. And one of them is so inside his own head that he may or may not even recognize a situation where his voice should be used.
Four boys, four very different challenges. While I would love to be able to list a plan of action right here in this blog, the fact is I don’t have one. I am painfully without a decisive plan of action here. But, what I do have is the knowledge and belief that this is important. I feel the responsibility to ensure that these lessons are taught to and learned by all four of my children. I have a strong sense of responsibility to helping them individually build their confidence and to finding the faith in self that will be required to make the choice to speak up when the time comes.
While I struggle with the mounting pressure of teaching my boys how to be men without the inherent credibility that comes with being a man, I will continue to do what I have always done: assess and adjust, while remembering that four different boys very well may require four different approaches. Not only has this one video reminded me of some important issues in our society that will directly impact my boys as they go through their life, it has reminded me that differentiation is not just for the classroom.
Differentiation is also needed in family management. We do not all learn the same way at school and we expect educators to take that into consideration when teaching our children. I have just been reminded that the same goes for the home. My four boys will have differing ways of assimilating and applying all the information and characteristics that will be required to become good men; it is my job to provide those lessons in whatever way is necessary for them to learn.
I may temporarily feel like an underdog and I may have failed to bring a knife to the fight, but that does not deter me in my quest to raise outstanding young men. Because at the very least, I have the knowledge of what is required, I have the determination to relentlessly provide all that I can to my boys, and I have unshakable faith that my Father in Heaven will help me to use my very Nikki way of parenting to provide for the boys’ every need.
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